Shared topic: Best Change to the Game

I’m really having fun with these shared topics. They kind of feel like a creative writing course assignment, but with an interesting topic instead of a crappy one. I get to work my imagination, then compare notes with others afterward. I find the exercise to be quite beneficial, and I’ve discovered some awesome blogs in the process. /end testimony

So this week’s topic is Best Change to the Game, proposed by Lathere from Hots&Dots. My first reaction was along the lines of “OMG you want me to pick just ONE?” I thought about a lot of convenient changes, like easing the leveling between 1-60, allowing flight in Outlands to level 60 characters. I thought about tiny changes that you wouldn’t notice unless you read patch notes (Patch 1.8 – Due to popular demand the general goods vendor in Undercity now sells Morning Glory Dew.) But there is one change that had a major, major, major impact on me.

Patch 3.1.0
Players level 40 and higher will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent specialization feature.

Yes, everyone likes Dual Specs, blablabla. You don’t understand. Let me go over this a bit. My paladin’s stats list me at 50 respecs. I’m not sure, but I think that number only covers my number of respecs since stats were implemented. I make a point of being as up to date and skilled as possible in my three talent trees, plus I also experiment with PvP specs when I’m feeling adventurous. Some people build alts to experience other sides of the game, I bend and twist my paladin any way I can. I can live with keeping several sets of gear current and polished. In fact, I affectionately say that I prefer building dps sets over actually using them. But! Several times a week, having to pay for respecs, having to redo my bars and spell bindings? Gross! It was such a huge waste of gold and time.

The day dual specs came out, the sun shone a little brighter. My gaming spirits were lifted. I was overcome with relief and satisfaction as the dual spec achievement flashed on my screen.

The first few times I made use of my dual spec in a raid setting, I would call it out on vent: “Hang on guys, I need to respec. Hang on, hang on, ooooooooh, done!” I probably annoyed the crap out of everyone, flaunting my bispectuality around (I don’t get credit for this expression, but I like it so much that I have included it into my everyday WoW vocabulary), but can you blame me? After long, painful respecs for years (slight exaggeration), I just felt so happy and liberated and needed to share that with my raidmates. I’m sure they would have done the same.

Since then, I’ve usually kept my specs as raid tanking/bubble holy, but depending on who’s around, I’ve messed with other combinations. Being in a casual guild for most of Wrath, our raid roster was different every night and, on many occasions, spec flexibility played a huge part in successfully getting a good 25 man raid on the go as well as keeping many people happy in our 10 mans. It was a relief for those who wanted to experiment with different roles but didn’t have the time or motivation to level another character. While there were some loot concerns among the officers before dual specs went live, it was actually beneficial. Offsets meant less stuff got sharded, and we didn’t have to put alt runs together to make sure we had some geared backup healers/tanks/dps. As I hinted to earlier, our mains could be their own alts.

Is Dual Spec perfect? Hell no. WTF, only two specs? I *still* have to respec fairly often. I can’t have two PVE healing specs, two tanking specs, a ret spec and two PVP specs all at the same time. (Me? Demanding? No wai!) But it’s so much better than before. My WoW life is significantly improved. Thank you Dual Talent Specialization.

9 Comments on “Shared topic: Best Change to the Game”

Dual Specs. How could I have forgotten dual specs? Probably because, when I was blathering on in my post about yay for change, I forgot how much that changed the game for me. My shadow priest, who used to be able to get away with saying, “Sorry, I’m shadow.”, now cannot get away with it when there is a need for a healer. Same with my warrior. She loves that Titan’s Grip, but a tank she will be, with a side of fury, because of dual specs.

I miss the days when I could just pop into shadow form and discourage people from asking me to heal! But then again, I never would have been able to gear that toon any better than as a healer. Dual specs turned my dime a dozen dps toons into sought after specialists. So, yay for change! *cheer*

You know, I didn’t stop to think about those flexible classes who don’t want to be flexible. Shadow priests everywhere must have sighed heavily when their excuse for not healing was taken away. But I suppose you could go always go with a PvE/PvP combo, as long as you have tank and healer friends you can count on.

Now that I’m pugging regularily, I really am seeing the huge difference between playing a tank/healer and playing a dps class. Actually, I even find it hard to get groups as a healer. I don’t like tanking for strangers, so I get into LFG as a healer. 15 minutes later, I sigh, click the tank box and immediately get a group invite.

So far as druids go you could always do what my old raid-leader did. He had 2, both dual-speced, one feral bear/feral kitty, the other tree/boomie. Still wouldn’t help you out with PvP specs though.
On a side note, my warrior is dual Prot/Arms but I’ve actually thought of building a spec more geared for off-tanking and replacing my Arms spec. While the flexibility sounds like a great idea, I find myself not using the DPS spec very often at all. I usually just end up tanking, even when PuGing.

I think people forget how much time was wasted when someone needed to hearth back to a city mid-raid and respec, AND then sort out their interface (nothing was remembered like it is now).

I also remember how many players leveled multiples of their character so they could take on different roles. 2 paladins at level 70? I knew a few players with 2. Or two druids. And many players who tanked on their Druid, and leveled a Priest to heal just so they would always have a tank and a healing character on hand ready to go.

I meant to also say… personally I feel as if my secondary spec is MINE. My main spec belongs to my raiding guild and it’s pretty conservative. It has all the talents I need to do the best job I can at whatever boss we’re stuck on.

But my secondary spec… it follows no rules. Some PVP, some talents that I’ve always wanted to try out, you name it, I’ll give it a shot. It’s MINE. I’ve stolen a piece of my priest back for myself :)

I like what you say about your secondary being yours. I’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve always ended up having to switch between both specs to raid (well, until recently) but it’s nice to think of it as that part of your character you can do whatever you want with.